A great variety of resilient mounting devices such as backpacks and shoulder harnesses are known and extend from children's schoolbags to child-toting packs to professionally designed mountaineer's packs. When used in long duration, difficult activities and under heavy loads, the shoulder straps of such packs and harnesses tend to rub and scrape against the user's shoulders, thus causing discomfort to the user.
Resilient mounting devices which absorb forces, impacts and displacements transmitted along a strap are known.
Whereas in the prior art, backpacks were conventionally constructed to have a generally flat back-engaging surface, recently backpacks have been designed with non-flat surfaces. Applicants have proposed backpacks with curved back engaging surfaces including curves in multiple directions.
In the prior art, it is conventional to employ a curved rigid backing member which may be slipped into a suitable pocket defined at the back of the backpack. A catalog produced by Millet S. A., B.P. 109 74600 Annecy-Seynod, France, illustrates on page 15 an "anatomical" three dimensional backing with a vertical S shape.